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Ted Koppel, former anchorman for ABC's Nightline, has a new four-part series on the Discovery Channel entitled "Koppel on Discovery: The People's Republic of Capitalism." The show began last night, and according to the New York Times, it offers an in-depth perspective on "an emerging capitalist economy tethered to an authoritarian government" by interviewing millionaires, peasants, drag queens and students. Adam Segal, a senior fellow in China studies at the Council of Foreign Relations, tells NYT that while the series might not add to the scholarly debate, it's important for the "general public":
By showing how the vast majority of Chinese have been made better off by economic development, it provides a credible argument for why, even with fairly widespread social unrest, the reign of the current regime is not seriously challenged.The series runs on four consecutive nights, with the second part, "MAOism to MEism," airing tonight. Here, Koppel promotes the series in a talk with TV host Charlie Rose on human rights in China.
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Is there Discovery Channel in China? I guess you can say "the show began last night" since it's July 10 afternoon in China now, but it's still July 9 evening in California and Part 1 hasn't started here yet. 30 more minutes.
You're right it's not scholarly debate, just take the quote you used. What figures are they using to get 'vast majority'.
Unless they take 'any increase in household income starting at 5 jiao' as their criteria for 'better off'.
As a percentage of the population the vast majority have not seen any 'economic' miracle. And, if you take the environment and general health as a factor, it's debatable if the group who did get office jobs and cell phones have a better quality of life at all.
Andy - the quote is not from the program, but from someone who is reviewing the program, so you can't really fault Ted Koppel for that.
His appearance on the Daily Show was funnier. I, for one, am intrigued and will be bit-torrenting this later.